Prosopon Newsletter 1 Copyright © Judith A. Green, 2001 Women and Inheritance in Norman England: The Case of Geva Ridel.T1 Judith A. Green (The Queen’s University of Belfast) A few years ago I wrote of aristocratic women in early twelfth-century England that we must be sure not to make the surviving evidence fit into a framework of what we know to have been custom later, by assuming that a son passed over in favour of a daughter must have been illegitimate, or that there may have been two marriages, or that daughters inherited all their mothers’ lands.2 In other words, how flexible were norms of inheritance – I use ‘norms’ rather than ‘customs’ here deliberately – where women were concerned in early twelfth-century England? I suggested that, although we probably only hear part of the story from the written evidence, we need to place women in the context of their families to understand the decisions that were made about inheritance and marriage. Further problems arise when we remember that the written records usually relate to aristocratic women and (often) to special cases: the marriage settlement of Miles of Gloucester and Sybil of Neufmarché, for instance.3 Yet some of the greatest honours of England, such as Belvoir,4 Huntingdon,5 and Wallingford,6 to name but three, descended through women. The claims of women, whether as heiresses or as wives, thus presented opportunities for their overlord, the king, and they were also sensitive political issues. Marriage was, as Sir Richard Southern wrote, ‘the easiest road to ready-made wealth’ in Norman England,7 and if some became (by modern standards) millionaires on marriage, others must have been disappointed or angry when decisions about important marriages were announced. One of the best known texts dealing with a marriage settlement in early twelfth-century England is that of Richard Basset, near the start of his career as a royal justice and sheriff of King Henry I, and Matilda, daughter of another royal justice, Geoffrey Ridel, who had drowned in the wreck of the White Ship. This, the Titanic of the twelfth century, had robbed the king of his heir and two other children, plus leading members of his entourage, who were returning from Normandy in November 1120 after a four-year absence. The king’s happiness and his plans for the future had been destroyed, but he moved quickly to remarry in the hope of an heir, and there were pressing decisions about government which could not wait whilst he withdrew for a protracted period of mourning. The casualty list included Richard, the young earl of Chester, who had died without heirs, and Geoffrey Ridel, a royal justice, and the question of their successors was related in the person of Geva Ridel, mother of Matilda, whose marriage was disposed of in the text we shall now look at in more detail.8 The text survives in the form of a royal notification addressed to three earls, David of Northampton and Huntingdon, not yet king of Scots, the earl of Leicester, Robert II de Beaumont, and Ranulf I earl of Chester, and the sheriffs of those counties in which Geoffrey Ridel had held land. The notification was twice copied into the thirteenth-century Basset cartulary in the British Library, one of the earliest surviving collections of charters and memoranda for a lay family surviving from medieval England, its compilation recently redated to the years between 1236 and 1241.9 The main provisions of the text are that Prosopon Newsletter, 12 (August 2001) Prosopon Newsletter 2 Copyright © Judith A. Green, 2001 Richard Basset was awarded permission to marry a daughter of Geoffrey Ridel and custody of Geoffrey’s land until Robert Ridel could be knighted (i. e. attained his majority) and could marry a granddaughter of Ralph Basset. Ralph was the father of Richard and there is a clear sense conveyed by this terminology of the Bassets’ concern not to lose Geoffrey Ridel’s lands. Richard was to have twenty poundsworth of land with his wife as her marriage portion in chief (‘of my fief’) and the service of four knights. If Robert Ridel died without an heir by his wife, the king granted to Richard Bassset and his heir by the daughter of Geoffrey Ridel, all Geoffrey’s land of whomsoever it was held, that is, the under-tenancies as well as the tenancies in chief. And if the daughters (plural) of Geoffrey were not married in the lifetime of Robert Ridel or whilst they were in the custody of Richard Basset, Richard was to make provision for them according to the king’s advice and consideration. The king concluded that this gift and agreement had been made at the request and advice of Ranulf earl of Chester, William (de Roumare), Ranulf’s half-brother, Nigel d’Aubigny and other kinsfolk. The notification was witnessed by the chancellor of the earl of Chester, the dean of Lincoln, a clutch of royal familiares, three Bassets, perhaps Richard’s brothers, and prominent members of Ranulf of Chester’s entourage. The place of issue was Woodstock, one of the king’s favourite residences, and the date of issue was between January 1121 and 10 June 1123 when the king left England for Normandy. Henry is known to have been at Woodstock in March 112110 and again in January 1123.11 It is tempting to ascribe the text to the earlier date, when Henry took a series of crucial decisions about patronage in the aftermath of the wreck of the White Ship. This is a remarkable text for a variety of reasons: first there is the careful provision for the custody of heirs to a royal official, not their mother, who does not figure here. Secondly, there is the involvement of Ranulf of Chester, who had recently been allowed to succeed his cousin Richard as earl, his half-brother William de Roumare and their kinsman, Nigel d’Aubigny, one of the king’s closest companions: here is a valuable insight into those able to influence royal decisions. Thirdly, a close inter-relationship between the affairs of royal officials, Geoffrey Ridel, Ralph and Richard Basset, is indicated. Fourthly, there is the king’s interest in all of this to ensure that Geoffrey Ridel’s successor in the midlands was a safe pair of hands. Perhaps there is a parallel with the appointment of Geoffrey de Clinton as sheriff in nearby Warwickshire.12 My concern here, however, is with the unnamed mother in the case, Geva Ridel, of whom it has been claimed that ‘perhaps no figure in medieval history has excited more controversy or engaged the attention of genealogists so much,’13 an overstatement, but one which alerts us to the interest of the problems surrounding her life and lands. To understand the ramifications, however, we need a few details about her husband Geoffrey, and about and the lands of Robert de Boucy which passed via Geva to the Bassets. The early stages of Geoffrey’s career are obscure.14 He, or a man of the same name, was mentioned in Domesday Book as having come to England from Apulia in the company of Roger Bigod’s brother.15 A man named Geoffrey Ridel, who became duke of Gaeta, was prominent amongst the Normans of south Italy at this time, and he obviously may well have been related to our Geoffrey.16 The place of origin of the latter has not been identified, but it seems likely that it was somewhere in western Normandy, possibly in the neighbourhood of Mont-Saint-Michel, where Geoffrey’s brother Matthew was a monk.17 A man from this region might well have attracted the notice of Henry I, who before his accession had been Prosopon Newsletter, 12 (August 2001) Prosopon Newsletter 3 Copyright © Judith A. Green, 2001 count of the Cotentin.18 Matthew Ridel was promoted to the important abbacy of Peterborough in 1102, but remained abbot for only a short period.19 Geoffrey Ridel began to appear as a witness to royal documents for the first time during the early years of Henry I’s reign, particularly in relation to the east midlands.20 It has been pointed out that Henry’s justices tended to work in the region where their own lands were situated,21 and thus it seems likely that Geoffrey by this time was married to Geva Ridel. The manor of Drayton in Staffordshire was Geva’s marriage portion, given to her by her father Earl Hugh of Chester: it was so identified in a charter of Earl Ranulf II of Chester.22 Yet by the time of the Basset cartulary, it was evidently family tradition that Geva was the daughter and heiress of Robert de Boucy. For the Bassets, this explained how the Boucy estates had come into their family.23 In her two surviving charters, however, Geva styled herself as the daughter of Earl Hugh.24 After the death of her husband Geoffrey, Geva never seems to have remarried, and in the 1140s she turned to the foundation of a religious house, Canwell Priory in Staffordshire, and it was in favour of Canwell that her charters were issued. These make no reference to her maternal kin, and Geva styled herself by reference to her husband and her father. There is no doubt that Geva was the channel through which the Boucy estates passed to the Bassets; the question is when and how? Was Geva the child of a lawful marriage of her father? Dugdale thought she was, because Drayton had been granted to her in free marriage, but it seems he was mistaken.25 Geva was a Latinized form of the old English name Giofu, and it seems possible therefore that she was the child of a liaison between Earl Hugh and an Englishwoman.26 Earl Hugh, as already mentioned, is known to have married only once to a wife of high rank: if Geva was her daughter then this would surely have been recalled? He is also known to have been promiscuous, because the chronicler Orderic Vitalis, in a memorable pen portrait, mentioned Hugh’s numerous sons and daughters by concubines.27 Two sons are mentioned elsewhere by the author: one, Robert, became a monk at Saint Evroul and, briefly, abbot of Bury St Edmunds.28 Another, Otuel, became tutor to Henry I’s heir Prince William and died with his master in the White Ship.